Luke Mitchell (pictured), of youth insights consulting business Voxburner – which is running Youth Marketing Strategy in New York on Thursday June 12 – looks at 
Since 2010, the British Red Cross has been running an ongoing behaviour change campaign aimed at teaching young people first aid skills. Things are going pretty well.
The campaign’s objective is to increase the number of young people who are confident, willing and able to help in a first aid emergency. It targets young people aged between 13 and 24 because, says campaigns manager Paul Donnelly: “We we have an ambition to build a generation of life-savers.”
The work was born out of the Red Cross’s corporate strategy which states they will increase the resilience of the UK population and make first aid easy to learn and easy to use.
What did the campaign look like?
Aware it might struggle to engage young people directly, the Red Cross decided to find influential YouTube vloggers who would be willing to talk about first aid to their audience. It looked for vloggers who had large natural fan bases within its target youth demographic, guaranteeing that they would reach their audience and minimise wastage.
“The vloggers are the messengers who carry the first aid learning to their audience and deliver it in their individual style,” says Donnelly, “which is often quirky with a bit of a twist. It’s entertainment but with an educational message. We did put advertising money behind some of the videos where we wanted to increase target particular interests or groups, but advertising costs were kept at a minimum.”
The British Red Cross researched issues that are relevant to young people and used them as the hook to talk about first aid. For example, when talking about putting someone in the recovery position, they talk about being unconscious as a result of alcohol. “Because we know that people aren’t going to want to watch a first aid film, we aim to make the subject matter – and the style – more relevant and engaging to the audience.” Vloggers went away and created their own videos according to a brief, for example this ‘Fireworks Fail’ bonfire night safety tips video.
What did the campaign achieve?
Donnelly used videos and issues to generate PR hooks in mainstream media. A very successful example was activity conducted on the subject of swallowing a harmful substance. “We used self-harm as the vehicle to talk about intentional self-poisoning and the subsequent first aid. We took National Health Service data to create a PR hook that we could use beyond the sphere of YouTube and this generated widespread coverage in mainstream media, including coverage on the UK’s Radio 1, Sky News, ITN, Daybreak morning TV show and BBC news.”
Collectively, the films have been viewed more than 7.5 million times, to date. They’ve achieved strong levels of engagement, between 2.4% and 6.4%. What’s more, engagement has allowed British Red Cross to respond to people’s questions or to correct misinformation in real time.
“This strategy has proven hugely successful,” says Donnelly. “First aid is an incredibly difficult subject to get the general public interested and engaged in, let alone young people. It has a reputation for being old-fashioned and is often associated with health and safety. We wanted to drag it into the 21st century and give it a makeover.”
But it’s not just about the big numbers. Demonstrating impact and changing behaviour is British Red Cross’s main priority. “Our campaigning work aims to achieve a wider benefit to society. And we’ve taken research and evaluation incredibly seriously. This has included evaluating whether the films have shifted key metrics including confidence and willingness to respond in a first aid emergency as well as whether people have taken up the first aid learning.
“All the films have significantly increased these measures, but as an example the film featuring how to treat a bleed from a knife wound increased confidence from 20% to 80% when rated on a scale of 1-10.”
The campaign won a major award in the UK, the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s third sector campaign of the year award, and was also chosen out of all of the winners on the night to win the chairman’s award: a recognition that marketing isn’t just about making a profit there is a wider benefit to society.
What can brands learn?
- Recognise your perception among young people and don’t be too proud to allow influencers to carry your message
- Give YouTubers the creative freedom to work out what their audience will respond to and don’t expect them to compromise their principles or style
- Leverage the media’s interest in YouTube celebrities to gain mainstream PR wins for your campaign.
Voxburner is running Youth Marketing Strategy in New York on June 12, bringing together the top thought-leaders, brands and agencies driving today’s fast-moving world of youth marketing and communications. Speakers include Spotify, MTV, Facebook / Instagram, TUI Travel, Tumblr, Mixcloud, Group Y, Econsultancy and more. For 10% off the registration fee, use discount code GMA10 when registering your place.
Luke Mitchell is head of Insight at Voxburner.